Monday, December 31, 2012

A Third Culture Kid Thinks About Guns

It’s happened again.This time it was innocent little kids who were slaughtered, along with their
teachers who were trying to protect their charges.Who wasn’t horrified, disgusted, sickened?They were little babies!Senseless!People are asking, “Where was God?”Why do these things happen?Why?I have a dear friend from the adoption community whose
daughter was a student at the Sandy Hook School.This beautiful little girl, born in China, was in the fourth
grade, and escaped, but her trauma is real, excruciating.

More recently it was a movie theater.Before that a grocery store.A college campus.A shopping mall.A military base.A restaurant.The absolute last places to which any of us think twice
about going and fearing for our safety.The knee-jerk reaction is that we should make guns illegal.Sounds good on its face.But doesn’t it then follow that only
criminals will have the guns, and we law abiding citizens won’t?As Susanna Hupp says in the video above,
all of the incidents happened in “gun free” zones.

The Philippines that I knew in the mid-1970’s was a country
under martial law.Martial Law is
supposed to be a temporary fix for times of civil unrest or political turmoil;
however, in Manila it lasted from 1972 until 1981.Nine years.Martial
law means the suspension of most civil rights, and puts civilians under
military courts of justice.It
suspends the rule of habeas corpus, which protects prisoners from unlawful
imprisonment.It’s a scary
concept, which, in its most literal sense, puts all citizens at the arbitrary
mercy of the government.

What it meant for us was curfew (1-4 a.m.) and lots and lots
of armed military police everywhere.Our school was surrounded by a very tall stone and iron fence, and there
were security guards at every possible entrance.(Somehow we kids knew how to break out, but I daresay we
weren’t tempted to break in).They
checked and re-checked IDs before allowing anyone to pass.They called ahead to the office to let them know who was
coming.Going to the bank, we had
to pass a guard with a very large rifle (although I noticed once that the gun
had no trigger).There were signs
at restaurants, stores and art galleries that read “Please deposit firearms
here”.I guess it should have been
a scary place to live, but I was never afraid.That may have been naïveté on my part, but I never saw fear
in my parents either.I pretty
much had free rein to come and go as I wished (well, for the most part!)I never gave it a thought, but I
probably felt safe because there was no danger of being shot at in a public
place.If I had been a Filipino
citizen, I would have had to ask myself if the tradeoff of losing my civil
rights for being safe from being shot was worth it. Gun control in Manila didn't help Imelda Marcos much when a deranged man attacked her with a bolo knife.

I didn’t grow up in a “gun” family.When I think back to my early childhood
in Louisiana, I remember my dad used to go duck hunting. I think it was a business thing, and he
only did it because he had to schmooze with customers or higher-ups in the
company.He had an enormous pair
of waders that I used to play in.We
did have a shotgun that made many moves with us, but for the most part it
stayed wrapped in its leather case, hidden in a closet.I’m pretty sure it was illegal for us
to have it in the Philippines.I
don’t know the whole story but there was some clandestine transfer of the gun
to someone who disposed of it.

Fast forward to the present: My husband has taught me to
shoot.I’m pretty good at it, at
the gun range, and I have a healthy respect for fear of The Gun, but I’m
not comfortable with The Gun.I
don’t even know if I could shoot a 400 pound gorilla who might break into my
house.That said, if I was ever in
a situation where a lunatic was on the loose, I would want to stand very close
to my husband, who can shoot with deadly accuracy.

Which brings me to the point: who is doing these killings?Mentally ill people.By definition they must be mentally ill
– who in their “right mind” would do such a thing?Do we really want to disarm ourselves, leaving the deranged
and the criminals with the guns?Do we want to be at the mercy of the next psychotic break?And if you extrapolate that idea to us,
the people, being unarmed, and the government-slash-military being the ones who
are armed, is that a viable option?As Susanna Hupp says, the original intent of the Second Amendment was
for us to be able to protect ourselves from THE GOVERNMENT.

This isn’t a gun issue. It is a mental health issue.No matter how many people try to de-stigmatize mental
disease, it remains an enormous stigma.We recoil at the word “schizophrenia” and “bipolar” and “autism”.Most of us turn away, thinking, “There
but for the grace of God go I.”For
those who are in the thick of it, it is a living nightmare.As the parent of a child with a form of
autism, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I found myself at his school,
asking, insisting, then begging to have him tested, begging for help, begging
for accommodations, and was made to feel like I was a hysterical helicopter
parent. One school, a private parochial institution, asked us to leave,
saying “We can’t do anything with him”.The memory of that one still stings in a major way.

At one parent meeting at the new public school, I sat in
front of a semi-circle of stern-looking teachers who, one after the other, told
me all of my son’s shortcomings, telling me “what he needs to do” and “if he
would only” and “you need to”.I
could only get one word out before the tears started falling.Not a single one of those ladies
reached out to pat my arm, hand me a tissue, nothing.They just sat and stared at me as I blubbered.It was humiliating.If it was humiliating for me, you can
only imagine the humiliation my child suffered every day in his classes. Not to say that all teachers are heartless,
I know there are very good ones out there, but where were they for my child? The other kids labeled him “odd.”I cried inside as other kids asked his
brother to play.When I suggested that
my other son might like to come too, the reply was, “Do I have to invite him too?”

This son is now in his early 20’s.He has a job, lives in an apartment with two roommates and
is doing great.I could not be
prouder of him.He is only mildly
affected; many people are surprised to know that he has Asperger's.An amazing therapist encouraged him to embrace his
differences instead of fighting them.She gave him valuable tools to begin his life as an adult.I can’t imagine the pain of those whose
kids have really big problems.

Mental illness is for the most part invisible.We as a society make it invisible.We
brush these people under the radar, looking the other away so we don’t have to deal
with them.When one falls through
the cracks, listens to voices in their head and starts shooting people, we
don’t look at the mental illness, we look at the guns.

I confess that I am a fan of the British Royal family.(Make all the jokes you want).Every day these people go around the
country, making public appearances.One day it could be a tire factory or a boat launching, but on another
it is at hospitals and facilities for the elderly, the physically or mentally disabled
or the terminally ill.They are
patrons of a multitude of charitable organizations who care for these
folks.Look at the long list of
charities which Princess Alexandra, a cousin of the Queen, supports: Alzheimer's Society, St. Christopher's Hospice, Royal Navy Nursing Service, Mental Health Foundation, Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and many others. And she is just a “minor” royal!

Princess Alexandra opens Mental Health Foundation's New Office

Many dismiss the royals as archaic and medieval, time for
them to move on.But think about
it: by publicly supporting these institutions, which take care of the most marginal
members of their society, they are acknowledging these people’s existence,
validating their illnesses and their very difficult lives.We could all take away a lesson
here.Remember how Princess Diana
hugged the child with AIDS?Look how far we’ve come from the days when AIDS patients were treated like
lepers.Google “mental health cuts in the US” and you will, as I was, be
shocked at the number of articles, just in the last month.Louisiana.Texas.Maine.Ohio.

There is a joke about a man standing under a street light,
looking for something.Another guy
comes along and asks him what he’s doing.The man replies, “I lost my wallet.” The other man asks, “Where did you
last see it?”“Down the block,” is
the reply.“Why are you looking
here?” the guy asks, incredulous.“Because there is more light here.”Maybe we are all looking for solutions in the wrong
place.

still thinking about your post and about illness. so many brilliant and creative people have suffered. i think of our beloved van gogh, poe, judy garland, beethoven, and certainly edvard munch and his sister. such pain and suffering. and such brilliant creativity on the good days. there are lots of messages here and much to reflect on. thank you.

FYI, there is usually an ad at the bottom of my posts. It may be asking you to sign a petition against gun control, or promoting a rehab center. Apparently Blogger picks up words in my posts and sticks ads at the bottom of my entries relating to those words. I have no say in the matter.